It Nearly Killed Me

I know I finished showing you all the pictures of the cruise, but did I share with you the story of when I nearly choked to death? Yes, to death! Sorry, I have no pictures of the actual event, but I'll show you this picture so we're all on the same page of what I'm talking about.

One night on the cruise, I couldn't decide between two meals, so I picked one and Bud picked the other (I knew he'd let me taste his).
It looked something like that. I think the meal I got was something akin to Thanksgiving dinner. I really wanted to taste Bud's food, so I grabbed my fork and got a big bite. It was SO GOOD! I loved it, and wished I had ordered it myself! I politely went back to my own plate, but in a minute, I wandered over to Bud's plate again, for just one more taste. I should have quit while I was ahead. This time, there was a strange taste about it. Most of it was still delicious, but THERE- there it was, a taste I knew didn't belong! I wasn't even polite about removing the offending taste from my mouth. I recognized the terrible taste as that of being a, a, a pickle! What? Yes! A pickle! What was a pickle doing in the beef stroganoff? I had no idea. Then, when I started to explain to the others at the table what I was having a fit about, I breathed in at the wrong time and started choking on another tiny piece of pickle. You know it's happened to you before. You breathe when you should have swallowed and then you start coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing and coughing. In between coughs you try to suck in as much air as possible, just so you can keep coughing.

At our table was our good friend, Larry. I knew and he knew, and he knew I knew that if it got bad enough, he was coming over to rescue me, being the good doctor that he is. But because I could suck in some air between coughs, and because I wasn't turning blue or purple, I was basically okay, I was just making a huge spectacle of myself. The funny part was the poor little server from the Philippines who was standing next to me wondering if I was about to die, and would she get written up for it by the maître d' and should she call someone to come help me, or was I going to recover by myself if she just kept standing there asking me if I was okay. I'm sure all that was going through her mind. Luckily for us all, I did recover, and I'm here to tell you all the boring story. Yes, that's how much I hate pickles.

On the other hand, my son actually allowed his girls to freely partake of an enormous pickle at CA Adventure. His caption oh Facebook was he had failed his children as a father. Yes, Samuel, you have. I guess gone are the days when parents protected their children from evil nasty things in this world, only to allow them to choose for themselves. I nearly died (again) when I saw my sweet granddaughters chewing on that gigantic green gross piece of nastiness. It's a good thing none of them choked to death on it.